TY - GEN
T1 - Privacy in the open
T2 - 2007 International ACM Conference on Supporting Group Work, GROUP'07
AU - Birnholtz, Jeremy P.
AU - Gutwin, Carl
AU - Hawkey, Kirstie
PY - 2007/12/1
Y1 - 2007/12/1
N2 - The tension between privacy and awareness has been a persistent difficulty in distributed environments that support opportunistic and informal interaction. For example, many awareness systems that display 'always-on' video links or PC screen contents have been perceived as too invasive, even though functional real-world analogues, like open-plan offices, may provide even less privacy than their online counterparts. In this paper we explore the notion of privacy in open-plan real-world environments, in order to learn more about how it might be supported in distributed systems. From interviews and observations in four open-plan offices, we found that attention plays an important role in the management of both confidentiality and solitude. The public nature of paying attention allows people to build understandings of what objects in a space are legitimate targets for attention and allows people to advertise their interest in interaction. Our results add to what is known about how privacy works in real-world spaces, and suggest valuable design ideas that can help improve support for natural privacy control and interaction in distributed awareness systems.
AB - The tension between privacy and awareness has been a persistent difficulty in distributed environments that support opportunistic and informal interaction. For example, many awareness systems that display 'always-on' video links or PC screen contents have been perceived as too invasive, even though functional real-world analogues, like open-plan offices, may provide even less privacy than their online counterparts. In this paper we explore the notion of privacy in open-plan real-world environments, in order to learn more about how it might be supported in distributed systems. From interviews and observations in four open-plan offices, we found that attention plays an important role in the management of both confidentiality and solitude. The public nature of paying attention allows people to build understandings of what objects in a space are legitimate targets for attention and allows people to advertise their interest in interaction. Our results add to what is known about how privacy works in real-world spaces, and suggest valuable design ideas that can help improve support for natural privacy control and interaction in distributed awareness systems.
KW - Attention
KW - Awareness
KW - Group work
KW - Privacy
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=57649183200&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=57649183200&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/1316624.1316632
DO - 10.1145/1316624.1316632
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:57649183200
SN - 9781595938459
T3 - GROUP'07 - Proceedings of the 2007 International ACM Conference on Supporting Group Work
SP - 51
EP - 60
BT - GROUP'07 - Proceedings of the 2007 International ACM Conference on Supporting Group Work
Y2 - 4 November 2007 through 7 November 2007
ER -